Archive for the 'Bedienung' Category

Users of Mozilla Firefox, who have updated their browser to the latest version (54.0 or higher), are currently experiencing difficulties with the eBesucher add-on. Whilst the addon remains installed, it is no longer displayed in the browser interface. This incident encourages us in our aim to develop a new and better add-on. Within the upcoming days, our developers will therefore intensify their efforts in processing this task. We will announce the release of the new add-on via newsletter.

As for now, in order to continue using the addon, you have several options:

Run the add-on in Firefox Portable 53.0. Firefox Portable is a portable browser version that does not need to be installed and which offers the same features as the normal Firefox. You can use Firefox Portable together but not simultaneously with any other Firefox version of your choice.

eBesucher now provides a social login to its members! By linking your eBesucher account, you can easily access the members area through a social network of your choice. The following networks are available: Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn.

Those who have not yet created an account on eBesucher, can easily sign up through one of the above mentionned social networks.

Below two examples on how to process on Facebook.

Connect Existing Account With Facebook

Go to the members area on User Data > Profile.

Look out for Social Login and go on Facebook.

If you are not yet logged in, you will be redirected, so that you can log in on Facebook.

Your eBesucher account is now connected with Facebook and you no longer have to log in on Facebook seperately!

Connect New Account Through Facebook

Go to the eBesucher login and click on Sign up with Facebook.

If you are not yet logged in, you will be redirected, so that you can log in on Facebook.

Click on the button Sign up now.

The following form will take over the data from Facebook. Simply proceed by confirming our terms and conditions and the confirmation email, that is all!

We are announcing two important updates, as we have updated the eBesucher design and released the IP suspension.

New Design

The internet develops at an exiting pace: What has been considered highly up-to-date only a few years ago is now already outdated. We have thus spent some more basic thoughts on the structure and design of eBesucher.

We are confident that you appreciate the new design and would be pleased to hear some feedback!

The eBesucher Design Over The Ages

eBesucher exists since 2002 and has quickly turned into a promising web portal. Take a peek into the past and have a look at our former webdesigns.

Design of 2002

On the 24th of October 2002, eBesucher sees the light of day and starts as a so-called “visitor exchange of the new generation”.

Thanks to an exclusive script and a variety of unique features, the site quickly turns into one of the most prominent marketing portals in Germany.

The demand for internet advertisement is high and despite a layout which at best qualifies as satisfying, thousands of members register within a very short time.

Design of 2005

With more than 30.000 members, the demand for a professional webdesign increases rapidly.

eBesucher starts an official design tournament, with dozens of advertisers participating. The winner convinces with a layout that was considered as modern and original for its time.

Apparent: The design from 2005 for the first time uses the eBesucher slogan and logo, as well as a color design, which defines the website until today.

Design of 2011

eBesucher has grown substantially over the years and many new features have been implemented. Since 2011, the eBesucher design thus presents itself in a plain outfit.

The navigation was moved in the header, which allowed us to gather additional space for the content area. The main page features a new simplicity and by placing distictive headlines, the subpages have been optimized for SEO.

For the first time, a context menu has found its way into the members area.

Design of 2016

The requirements for a modern website are primarily a good usability and a clear outline. Both aspects have been considered during the remodelling of eBesucher.

Extensive graphic effects were largely dispensed with. At the same time, the design is characterized by a new minimalism, which is oriented towards the latest trends in web optimization.

Whilst the main page has already been remodelled in 2015, the newest design now comes with a fresh header and is completely responsive. This enables the user to comfortably access the portal from a mobile device.

For time travellers: the Wayback Machine from archive.org allows you to display all the eBesucher Layouts from 2002 until today.

IP-Suspension

The IP-suspension enables an advertiser to receive so-called unique impressions. Applying this feature ensures that during a time interval which is defined by the advertiser, a visitor only gets to see the advertising campaign once.

Until today, using the IP-suspension was restricted to members that have signed up for a premium membership. Ths restriction no longer applies. As before, using the IP-suspension costs 1 BTP per impression and allows the advertiser to optimize his advertising campaign.

The settings for the IP-suspension can be found in the members area, see: Visitors > Manage Pages > Edit > Costs and Consumption.

We have developed a new feature for the surfbar which allows to display websites that contain a framebreaker in all webbrowsers.

Info

Since websites that contain a framebreaker are disrupting the frameset of the surfbar, they could – up to now – only be displayed to users that are running the eBesucher add-on for the Firefox webbrowser. Since this imposes a restriction for advertisers as well as users, our developers have spent some thoughts on this and have elaborated a simple as well as practical solution.

Surfbar Upgrade

Provided that the surfbar is accessed through the dashboard (Surf now), the user can now visit websites that are loading a framebreaker, irrespective of the used browser. Whenever the system determines a website that loads a framebreaker, the dashboard discontinues the surfing session by hiding the control device of the surfbar.

Next, the website that loads a framebreaker will be displayed as a fullscreen advertising in the browser window of the surfbar. The dashboard acts as a control device and indicates the amount of time that the website will be shown. After the time has elapsed, the dashboard automatically reopens the surfbar and the surfing session continues.

Besides the dashboard, the new feature can also be accessed through one of the interest areas (Discover), as well as through the surflink options of a shared surflink (Surf now).

New cost structure

As for now, sites that load a framebreaker could only be displayed to users who were running the Firefox Add-on. However, since not all of our users are using the add-on, we were unable to match the high demand from the part of our advertisers. This has forced us to double the costs for advertising those sites.

The upgrade of the surfbar allows us to display websites that load a framebreaker in every browser. This enables us to revoke the regulation of the double costs. Furthermore, since websites that load a framebreaker can only be displayed outside of a frameset, it is required to advertise them as an Entire page. The advertising costs thus do not change. However, advertising a website as an entire page increases the visibility of the advertising campaign.

Advantages

For users as well as advertisers, the upgrade of the surfbar has many advantages.

For Users

Enhanced Usability: the upgrade presents itself as a practical alternative to the Firefox Add-on.

Irrespective of the used browser, all websites can be displayed.

Users that are surfing without the eBesucher add-on will be able to see more websites, this has a positive effect on the earnings.

New features of the eBesucher API now allow you to modify specific settings and to request the current data of an advertising campaign. Thus, in order to modify the consumption rate as well as your personal bid and in order to retrieve the number of the received impressions, you no longer have to log into your personal account.

The new API features at a glance:

Modify the consumption rate as well as the bid.

Calculate the consumption rate as well as the bid.

Calculate charged costs within a custom time period.

Calculate the received number of impressions within a custom time period.

Using the API is free for all members. The number of API requests can be influenced by signing up for a premium membership.

The following recommendation goes out to all those who wish to earn more bonus points: Share your surfbar or individual surflink with friends and acquaintances! Keep in mind: ever since we have released the multi-device feature, the surfbar can be used an infinite number of times, provided that each user possess a public and unique IPv4 address. All of the bonus points that have been earned this way will be credited to your account!

In order to recommend the surfbar to a friend or an acquaintance, a surflink can be shared easily via a social network such as Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus. In this regard, we have released a new feature which makes sharing surflinks on social networks even more convenient.

This is how it works

Enter the members area and go to Traffic Exchange > Surflinks. Here, choose the surflink that you wish to share with your friends. The following website will display the link along with the following buttons to you social network:

By clicking on a button, a browser window to the respective social network will open. You may be asked to log into your social network account, please do so. The surflink is automatically displayed and you are able to describe eBesucher in a few words. Example:

– “Discover new websites and support me in collecting bonus points!”
– “Find out about new stuff on the internet – with eBesucher.com!”
– “Discover the diversity of the online world. and support me by collecting bonus points!”

Last but not least, you have to publish the post. When your friends or acquaintances access it, they will be directly directed into the surfbar and you will earn bonus points for the websites that they visit. Of course, the post can be shared repeatedly and on different social networks.

Payout

Since many of you have raised this question: There is no limit regarding the maximum amount of bonus points that are eligible for a payout. You and your friends can visit as many websites as you want and turn the points into real money, once your balance amounts to 2 Euro. You can request a payout in the members area, see Points > Payout.

We have developed a new feature for the surfbar: the visitor session. It allows an advertiser to optimize their advertising campaigns for web analytics tools and visitor counters such as Google Analytics or Piwik.

First off, it should be noted that when it comes to analyzing the activity of a website, visitor counters often measure a short session duration and a high bounce rate for all visitors that have been acquired through an advertising campaign (e.g. popup, surfbar, iframe). In the following, we explain you the reasons for this and tell you how you can optimize these measurements.

Terminology

In the beginning, we will explain some of the fundamental concepts which are essential for a successful acquisition as well as the measurement of new visitors. Later on, we will clarify a widespread fallacy and explain the difference between the time of visit and the session duration.

The Time of Visit

The time of visit is a value that an advertiser has to determine in the eBesucher members area. Doing so allows him to define the amount of time that his website should be displayed to a surfbar user. We recommend to set the time of visit to at least 30 seconds, as this will allow the surfbar user to fully perceive the advertised website, without having to pause the surfbar.

The Session Duration

In order to analyze a visitors online activities, common web analytics tools work with so-called sessions and rely on the term of the session duration. The following is a definition of Google Analytics:

“A session is a group of interactions that take place on your website within a given time frame.“

For each visitor that accesses a website, the visitor counter opens a session. This is independent of the amount of time that a visitor spends on the website and whether he returns. In order to receive a positive integer for the session duration, the visitor has to access the website at twice or more often within a particular time frame. In Google Analytics, this time frame amounts to 30 minutes. The session duration is 0 seconds if a visitor does not return and does only access the website once. In order to measure a session duration that is greater than 0, the following requirements have to be met:

the visitor has to access the website at least twice.

the impressions have to take place within a particular time frame (a session).

The Bounce Rate

Web analytics tools like Piwik work with another indicator whose relevance relies on the measurement of a session. The so-called bounce rate is determined by the number of visitors who only access a website once within a session. Google Analytics defines the bounce rate as follows:

“Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).”

The widespread logic of analyzing and thus improving website traffic consists in attracting new visitors who perform multiple page views. Therefore, a high average bounce rate implies that the acquisition of visitors can be further optimized.

Differences Between Web Counters And eBesucher

Time of Visit vs. Session Duration

A fundamental difference in methodology exists between the terms time of visit and session duration, which is why many advertisers are subject toafallacy. Both terms refer to two values, which may be similar but not comparable. The time of visit simply refers to the amount of time that a visitor remains on a website and does not take into account any subsequent impressions. On the other hand, the session duration refers to the act, during which a visitor performs multiple impressions on a website. To conclude: web analytics tools are using sessions and thus do not intend to determine the visitors time of visit.

It remains to be noted that our advertisers have expressed the wish to be able to optimize the value of the session duration and the bounce rate. Until now, for every visitor that has originated from the surfbar, a high bounce rate as well as a low average session duration has been measured. This phenomenon always occurs when the advertisers applies the IP-suspension, provided that the time frame of the IP-suspension is greater than the time frame of the session. The IP-suspension allows an advertiser to promote his advertising campaign exclusively, which prevents the visitor from performing follow-up visits.

Why The Visitor Tracking of External Web Counters is Inadequate

From our point of view, the analysis of the visitor flow by external web counters like Piwik or Analytics is not convincing, as it does not pay respect to visitors that do not trigger any follow-up impressions. If you consider that SEO-optimized websites nowadays often provide all infos on a particular subject directly, it becomes clear that they do not require the visitor to click any further. The visitor simply does not have any incentive to look for more infos, as he usually finds them directly. It is an implicit fact that in an online world that is growing rapidly and at a tremendous pace, the steps to information become shorter. Requiring multiple pageviews in order to get a positive value for a session duration does not seem to be an appropriate way of analyzing internet traffic. The session duration as well as the bounce rate are thus two questionable elements of web analytics.

Event Tracking

In order to analyze the visitor flow in detail and regardless of individual page views, webmaster can set up so-called Event Tracking codes. This allows to track individual actions such as downloads or clicks on videos and ads. The advantage of a web tracking code is obvious: it allows the webmaster to measure the activity of a non-returning visitor who does only perform a single page view and thus does not create a positive session duration.

The Visitor Session

The visitor session allows an advertiser to ensure that all of the sessions of the visitors that originate from eBesucher, consist of more than one website access. Using the visitor session thus allows external web counters to measure a positive session duration as well as a low bounce rate. Advertisers can promote a website, a feed or an advertising campaign that consists of up to 50 different subpages, which will be displayed up to 5 times in consecutive order to the same surfbar user.

Example

Applying these settings will have the following effect: the advertising campaign will be displayed in 50 different surfbars with 2 consecutive impressions. Since the time of visit defines that 30 seconds lie between the first and the last access of each impression, this specifies the session duration. Reminder: the session duration thus does not make reference to the actual time of visit (2 x 30 seconds = 60 seconds), but rather defines the value that external web counters regard as a session duration. Applying the visitor session will allow the external web counter to measure a very low bounce rate as well as a positive average session duration.

Miscellaneous

Since a visitor session requires to advertise the advertising campaign consecutively and not in parallel order, the format of display has to be set to Entire page.

The visitor session is available to all Premium and Premium Plus members.

In order to make your surfing experience with eBesucher more convenient and safe, we have recently implemented a protection against sites that open a framebreaker. The protection is available on your dashboard, see Start & Infos in the members area.

How it works

By launching the surfbar through the SURF NOW button, your dashboard will monitor the surfbar and restart the surfbar window automatically once it has stopped working. This feature simply requires you to leave the dashboard open as long as the surfbar is running. Therefore, please note that the protection is rendered inoperative in case that the browser crashes. However, the protection offers you a crucial advantage: it is fully integrated into the browser, you do not have to install additional tools or add-ons!

Additional Protection

For those of you who are using the surfbar frequently, we still recommend installing the eBesucher restarter as well as the eBesucher add-on. Both tools have proven themselves valuable and many of our users rely on them.

Upon the request of our users, we have released two features which have previously been reserved for our premium members. As of now, all of you can determine the format of display and activate the advanced visibility test for each advertising campaign.

Format Of Display

Determining the format of display allows you to promote a website as a standalone campaign in the surfbar! In order to apply this feature, please use the field Format of display and choose the option Entire page when adding your website. By activating this feature, your website will receive the whole advertising space and no second website of another advertiser will be displayed next to it. This has two major advantages:

Your advertising campaign will not be displayed next to a competing website, which increases the attention of the visitor.

Your advertising campaign covers twice as much space, which enhances the visibility of the content.

Please note: because the impression covers twice as much advertising space, the costs are twice as high.

Advanced Visibility Test

The advanced visibility test is yet another measure that aims to ensure a consistent stream of high quality advertising. If this feature is activated, our system will use the HTML5 Visibility API in order to assess whether the website is displayed within the visible area of the screen. The impression will only be counted unless the visibility test delivers a positive result.

It goes without saying that both features can be activated or deactivated after the advertising campaign has been created.

For over a year, we have been working on realigning eBesucher and we are proud to announce that we have finally released a major update before the turn of the year. We hereby intend to lay the foundation for an extensive transformation, which aims at rendering the surfbar more attractive.

It is our ambition to listen to the wishes and needs of our loyal users and we seek to fulfill their needs wherever possible. Thus, our users will from now on have a major influence on the content of their personal surfbar. We will now offer them interesting and entertaining content, which is in accordance with and tailored to their personal interests.

Advantages for our users

You can access or visualize the different areas of interest through our main page and follow them if interested.

Depending on what areas of interest you have selected, we will display you ad-free content, which primarily has an informative and entertaining character. This allows us to bring some variety to the surfbar. At the same time, the ability to mention your personal interests will have a positive influence on your earnings.

Whether you would like to watch ad-free content or earn a bonus by visiting sites of our advertisers, can be defined in the members area, see Traffic Exchange > Settings.

Furthermore, you can now rate websites that are displayed in the surfbar. Let us know, which webpages are appealing to you, so that we can take your interests into consideration.

Advantages for advertisers

By improving the usability, we expect to increase the activity of our surfbar users. The surfbar will become more interesting, which will have a positive influence on the impact of the advertising campaigns. The innovations also form the basis for upcoming features, which will allow us to target the websites to your advertising needs.

We thank you all for your confidence and are looking forward to your feedback.